


the words we say

by unkahii



Category: Haikyuu!!, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Angst, Drabbles, Fluff, Other, Update tags as i go along, based on a prompt list
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29722308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkahii/pseuds/unkahii
Summary: what you say, what you don't say. the unsaid, the said. these words build up more than what we notice, don't they?
Relationships: Dazai Osamu (Bungou Stray Dogs)/Reader, Hanamaki Takahiro/Reader, Suna Rintarou/Reader, Terushima Yuuji/Reader, Yamaguchi Tadashi/Reader
Kudos: 13





	1. the unsaid things you whispered at my fingertips ; dazai osamu

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by [this](https://eversncenewyork.tumblr.com/post/110395333021/send-me-a-ship-and-one-of-these-and-ill-write-a) prompt list

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poet! reader x dazai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⌲ things you didn't say at all

Your blank meditation on the white paint of the ceiling is interrupted as the couch at your side dips and Dazai deposits himself on the seat and leans into your frame causally. Attention thus shifting, you take notice of the book that’s held popped open in his hands, and immediately frown. He on the other hand, placidly sifts through the page till he finds the one tiny poem sitting at the corner of page 121, and turns to you, his breath fanning your jawline.

“Hey, this one’s so beautiful.”

And you take in the words printed on the page, and recognise the poem over which his fingers run now, almost caressing the words, as if caressing not what you’ve written but you, yourself. Putting the cup down, you decide to join your fingers to his, and wonder out loud, half sceptical, half amused,

“Is it?” In response, Dazai hums, but his attention doesn’t waver and he stares at that page, at the words, and his frame leans further comfortably into yours; you make space, shifting around on the couch, so that his head ultimately ends up lying on your lap.

“It is,” he answers wondrously. “It’s not the really the technique I think, there are ones with prettier phrases and heavier meanings in here, but this one….almost feels like you. It’s like you’re reaching out through the words.”

The light in his eyes dances, and the softness lining the creases of his face as he takes in each line, each word over and over again, makes you think of the way he looks a you, or you look at him sometimes, at the end of nights, or start of days. The words twirl in his head, some sing, and some like a sad storytellers, just narrate things that he knows he hasn’t heard from your lips at least. So like you, and yet he has never heard you utter a word of the emotion that the poem contains. In front of his eyes, the hands open, fingers unfurl, the flower, withered, sitting atop your palm comes into view, and then dropping the flower onto his lap, you reach out. You hand is running in mazes through his hairs, and Dazai thinks he should voice this concern out.

“You’ve never said these things to me.”

There’s no accusation in his voice, no sadness, but simply an innocent observations. Here, your line of thinking finds its end, and with voice equally neutral as his you tell—

“It’s not easy to put everything into words. I don’t know how to say, what to say.”

His fingertips still glide over the page, yours try untangling the knots that have formed in his hair. To translate what lives inside your heart—part screams, part songs, part fire, part waters of the ocean—is not really a task that you believe you can carry out, if not in the language of your vulnerability, that is literature. If asked, how you create what you create, you answer will be exactly the same as the one you’ve just given Dazai. You don’t know. It’s the way you process what goes on inside you.

“I love this one,” he breathes, before closing the book and putting it away. You let your touch drift to his face, and while you draw absentminded patterns over his forehead, he goes on, “and I know. I know not all things can be said like that….I know.”

Of course he knows. If he doesn’t know, and if he doesn’t understand, who really will?

“Read to me” The request falls off from his mouth and instantly you smile. Reaching out for the book, skim through to find one, that just like the one before, contain words that translate the thoughts, emotions that are otherwise translatable. Not knowing how to say the things that live inside you, but there’s at least one way to weave music out of that chaos, incoherence, and now, he’s asking you to sing. It’s not a serenade, but you put honesty in the gaps and pauses between the words read out loud, while he listens, eyes closed. Your fingertips press kisses on the on the love in his lips.


	2. summers end. lovesickness stays ; hanamaki takahiro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> two times he says that he loves you and the one time you actually respond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⌲ things you said under the stars and in the grass

The grass is cool under your palm. The sky shines with starry glitter. The air smells of late summer—the end of summer to be specific. When you say that you’ll be leaving Sendai permanently to move to Tokyo, Hanamaki Takahiro’s daze breaks. 

_Oh shit shit shit. No…please. Not so early._

Summer has to come to an end someday. Some night, the winds will grow cooler and some morning you’ll find snow over this grass too. It’s not early—it’s been years, this summer has already been seventy days long. _Has he then lost his chance again?_

“I see,” is his response. In his peripheral, he can see your smile grow a little less lively, the corners of your mouth drooping down by the slightest. _Maybe not_ —at least he has this evening, and maybe tomorrow, then the day after next…

“When are you leaving?” he asks, full of fake bravado. His hopes are shattered more violently, when you answer—

“Tomorrow.” 

_Why…why this doesn’t make sense! Why is he being told this so late then?! Or was it an emergency?_

“They called at short notice,” you explain and the knot in his chest tightens further. 

“You should get going then, shouldn’t you? I mean packing and all.” 

“I’m done with that.”

Oh, so you’re done packing too? Truth be said, the image of your packed bags cuts down even the sliver of light that was seeping in. Everything grows dark; there’s a fog that’s sedating his rationale thought. Crying could bring him some relief. But now can he cry? 

Is he the only one stuck in this no-man’s-land between childhood and adulthood—a grown adult, with the aimlessness of a child, the aimlessness of summer. 

Summer is a kid. And he has allowed this kid to set his heart on fire again. 

“Ah cool,” Makki says. _No, not cool._

The stream flows, mumbling slightly in the evening scene. The pause doesn’t last long, because finally, standing at the point where he is supposed to say goodbye forever, the urge to act becomes desperate. 

He needs to say it. 

“I love you, Y/n. Romantically.” 

And so he does. 

Your eyes widen, your mouth rounds to utter out that small “oh” but other than that, other than silence, you don’t reply to him at all. You talk about this and that, but his feelings, like it always has, fades away into the evening air, into the summer’s end. And he’s left staring at your back as you climb the _shinkansen_ and disappear into a blur. 

Thus Makki experiences his first rejection. 

.

.

.

He chases you in the plainest of words. He hunts down job after job offer in Tokyo, the bustling megalopolis. All because he wants to see you again, say that he loves you again, and this time, he hopes, if he works on himself, if he puts in some more effort, you’ll reply back. You’ll tell him that you love him too. He hopes, he feels sick (love sick) and so he invites you out on a day during autumn, and once again, under the stars, this time, your soles planted firmly on the yellowing grass, he tells you, once more—

“Y/n I love you.” 

Pause. Silence. 

“Would you go out with me.”

In the street not far away, the cars race, time races. People race with that time, against that time. Your lives have changed now—you are infinitely busier than you used to be during that last summer spent in Sendai a little more than three years ago. Three multiplied by three sixty-five—it’s not a short time. You’ve had your own share of fantasies and fun; he, despite trying to seek out love elsewhere, found it nowhere, other than when thinking of you and ultimately crawled back. 

Here. Under the stars and over the grass. The air of Tokyo, with the salty wisps of the sea in the air, smells sweet. 

But Makki’s heart, feels that same-old, same-old pain again. This feeling was the very reason he ended up bottling his feelings for you for so long. 

You look at him apologetically, and then say—

“I don’t want say that I feel the same. I care, but I don’t know if what I feel is the same as what you do.” 

And thus, Makki feels rejection for the second time. 

.

.

.

This time the stars and the grass don’t return. This time, it’s the hour when day breaks. 

The sun is on the horizon, about to rise. Through the large glass window of Iwaizumi’s apartment, you watch it ascend. When Makki speaks, his words leave foggy footprints on that glass. He whispers it this time, says it with his heart choked with emotion—a moving sensation, warmth, and sadness and joy. 

“I love you, Y/n,” he says. This time you put your head down on his shoulder before speaking up—

“Why though? Doesn’t it hurt?” I’m sure there are others.” 

“It does hurt,” he drawls, smiling. “But there aren’t others.”

“How do you even do it.” 

“I’m pathetic, in a way. Can’t get over, can’t grow out of it.”

“Lovesickness?”

“You can call it that.”

“Do you want to be cured of it?”

“No. Not really.” 

Have you ever been hugged like this, without being hugged? It feels like home, here, physically far far away from a real home, it still feels like that. When the winds howl, when the cold grows, when summer leaves—you’d like to return here. Love builds this home, the tiny haven that knows lovesickness, that knows how to long, to hold, to stay. 

“I think, I’m pretty badly in love with you too.” 

This time, Makki lets himself sniffle. It feels like candy floss, or marshmallows in chocolate—just garnish them with this emotion he can’t describe (you’re finally here). Quiet euphoria he has never tasted before. 


	3. we search answers, reasons at the end ; terushima yuuji

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a summer afternoon and the answers to dire queries that don’t come. fluff to angst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⌲ things you said when the happiest we ever were

They never noticed the pink already dusting his cheeks when they asked the question. They didn’t notice at first that since morning Terushima Yuuji was not being quite himself. 

“Dude, we have no practice today, wanna hit the arcade or something—”

“No thanks really, man. I-I-I have s-stuff to do.” 

“Huh? What d’you mean? What stuff?” 

Only when he turned to meet their gaze, sheepish smile hanging on his lips and the warm pink who shade has deepened on his cheeks, did they finally realise. But instead of the teasing, whistling and raucous congratulating that was supposed to ensue, they merely looked too thunderstruck. 

Terushima Yuuji’s eyes appeared lazy, warm and in some way comforted. Calm. 

_As if he was in love._

.

The sunlight filtered in through the net formed of green leaves—patchwork of mellow light. The afternoon air smells sweet—like baked buns waiting to be savoured; the breeze was slow, deliberating, as it followed him along as slowly you traced your way along the long route back home. The crickets sang; in the blue sky the clouds swam as leisurely as you walked. 

The smile was so difficult to keep off his face; he felt hesitant, nervous even, but his hand inched towards yours time and again till, finally, your skin brushed against his on the fourth attempt. Terushima felt himself stiffening up from head down—this is so embarrassingly gladdening. Softly, you wove your fingers into his. The mosaic, patchwork formed by your linked fingers. 

“The clouds look pretty,” he blurted out clumsily, desperate to kill the silence and make conversation. A chuckle followed after. 

“Yes, they do,” you answer. “They do look pretty.” 

The light from the sun bent over the edges of the cottony clouds, created a hallow of sorts that made them look like they were from another world altogether. The edges were light and the portions far away from those edges, dark. The sky was the most pleasant shade of cerulean and you…you felt the happiest you ever were. 

His heart beats launched into a dash when with laughter in your voice you suddenly proclaim heartily—

“Y’know, Terushima, I really really like you so much.” 

And so, did he. 

.

.

.

.

The deal with life is, nothing ever stays the same forever. Everything is subject to change, transformation, metamorphosis. Like fireworks blooming on the inky canvas of the sky during your summer festival date, or the cherry blossoms during spring that after their short visit, left you to deal with the gradually ageing year. What went wrong, he still can’t tell—even if he sits hours and hours with his head in hands, Terushima still failed to arrive at the answer to the “how”

How do we save this, Y/n? 

The answer that arrives is not an elaboration on the “how” aspect, but a straightforward negation, a painful, heartbreaking thought to acknowledge—

“You can’t.” 

Nearly a year has turned. He finds you at the shoe lockers and then, overcome with a burst of desperation, calls out (reaches out before it tumbles into the abyss) – 

“Hey, Y/n! Wanna go home together.” 

You shoot him a plaintive look. He’s the only one smiling at the face of the end here. The crickets sing, the sky is probably very blue too. But sadly, you look away. 

“Yuuji, I’m sorry—”

“Ah, no worries then.” 

The air hurts, you are hurting together in this. Like the fireworks whose sparkles spread away and then finally vanish into the evening darkness, like cherry blossoms that eventually wither away—your feelings fold upon each other, they cocoon themselves into a shrivelled space, before turning to dust. Endings. 

What’s the point? Why bother going on? 

You search for the happiness lost. The same blue skies, the same summer song, the same content light in the other’s eyes. 

“Hey, Y/n,” he calls out again. You’ve finished changing your shoes and are standing at the door. 

It’s too sad to just carry this on. Nonetheless taking in a deep breath he says—

“I really really like you a lot.” 

He does. 

You smile a bittersweet smile. Then reciprocate 

Spring is long gone. Summer too has. The fireworks show is over, the cherry blossoms have wilted and withered. 

“Yeah, I really really like you a lot too.” 

The end has come but still you look for the times when the happiest you ever were. 


	4. if it feels just alright ; suna rintarou

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what’s the issue if you mess up plans, if it still feels just alright ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⌲ things you said that I wasn’t meant to hear

The last time you remember crying out of some emotion that wasn’t remotely like sadness was back during middle school – when your favourite ship finally got together during the final season of the anime. You had sat staring at the ceiling, heart full, and mind solaced, while sniffles still shook your nose at gaps. 

And this time when you cry like that again, standing on the other side of the curtain, as quietly as possible, it’s because you’ve heard something that maybe you were not really supposed to hear. 

Suna’s voice is saturated with fondness when he pronounces your name, tells as softly as you’ve heard him say—

“I love Y/n. I do, yeah.” 

You can’t really hear what the twins are saying either, because once more you feel so overcome with gentle emotion. Happiness. Gratefulness and all the nice things. Some way or the other, the moment feels so ethereal, so you refuse to budge from the place, even if you should get going. This is not your place to be eavesdropping, much less stand there wallowing in your feelings. The next thing that you successfully hear however, is something that tests your ability to not start howling then and there. 

“Man, I’d love to marry Y/n at this point, but I just don’t know how to come out and say it.”

You should save your reactions for later, but if you shuffle away too carelessly, your presence here might be given away. Pulling out the handkerchief, dabbing at the corners of your eyes once, you finally manage to peel yourself away from the spot behind the curtain. You feel dizzy with feelings, the warmth in your heart is swelling—it feels too good to believe, to believe that it’s possible to feel like this—cloud like, cotton candy like, hot chocolate, all the good things. 

.

“You didn’t happen to hear anything I was telling the twins, did you?” he asks carefully when you’re back in your room for the night and the boys have left. The way your posture stiffens awkwardly, and you look away, guilt everywhere in your eyes, gives you right away. 

“You didn’t, right?” Suna asks, this time certainly panicked. You don’t reply, don’t move from your place at all; it’s an easy white lie, not supposed to cost you so much effort, but for some reason or the other you fail to utter any words out. The few seconds tick, and Suna, realizing what had gone down groans loudly in frustration (and obviously, embarrassment) 

“You weren’t supposed to hear that, Y/n!!” 

“Uhh…I guess I shouldn’t have.” 

You’re still frozen in that spot, in that posture. Now the weight of your actions strike you, and the understanding dawns that you may have messed up big time. You’re scared to see his face for a moment and then in the next you’re hurling that thought away and turning around. 

“I’m sorry I—Rin?” 

You love each other, true; you’ve known each other for some time now, true. But still, you can’t remember seeing that precious expression on his face. That pout complete with the blush (you never thought he was even capable of making a face like that!). It soon morphs to a shy smile, and then the sigh leaves his body. Your eyes, suddenly more perceptive than they are normally, watches the way the emotions dance on his face. It’s overwhelming him maybe, like it overwhelmed you for a moment. You will never know what to call them, but you’ll be so infinitely be swayed by their effects. 

So, you think of letting him know your reply. 

“I’d say yes, though.” 

With widened eyes, a little bashful, he looks up from his lap. Wonderous disbelief. “Well, funny it made me cry. When…you speak like that…it kinda melts me…I think so, yeah.” 

It could have been better though. It could have been staged more perfectly, maybe more pumped with these same emotions. Your overhearing him spoiled all the plans that have been stewing in his mind from sometimes now, and it’s something so half-baked that has arrived as the result. 

“So, if I asked you, would you like to marry me, you’d say…” 

“Say yes,” you complete for him. However half-baked it turned out to be, you were never the one to search for glazy, shiny flawless perfection. 

Suna has to get up from his seat and shuffle over to you. Despite being messed up, the intensity of it all doesn’t reduce a little, it’s not too much, not too less, just like how you’ve always liked it; he leaves the thought that his plans were spoiled behind. Instead, he meets your gaze, pauses for a moment before collapsing into your arms. Because why not? You’ve loved each other, (your breath fans the exposed skin of his nape; you can feel his heart racing fast against yours) you’ve spoiled plans enough times together. 

Your arms tighten around his frame. 

In other world, maybe it wouldn’t be this way, but this is your world after all, and if it feels just alright, with him and you, why not let it be like that. 


	5. crybaby ; yamaguchi tadashi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this story is yours to be called beautiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ⌲ things you said when you were crying

If you want to, you can call him a crybaby, a pussycat and someone who probably doesn’t fall into the category of cool people. It sounds baseless, so you laugh it off. Yamaguchi Tadashi is cool, even if he finds it hard to accept it himself sometimes.

“You’re amazing,” you say softly. Tsukishima, makes a mock puking face at your tone, and then adds on, in his own, nonchalant way—

“You’re cool, Yamaguchi, stop thinking like that.”

Old habits die hard. He is not accustomed to loving himself. In the shadow of his friend, it has been comfortable, but it’s still a little difficult to let go of the fact that, once upon a time, he was chosen to be the subject of bullies’ jeers and the butt of their jokes. Yes, time has passed from since then, but at times, he still ends up feeling this—

Is he good enough anyways? Worth it?

You tell him, how you can make him believe that it’s not so.

Change will never be comfortable, especially it it’s changing something that has become very deeply ingrained into your heart and mind. Highschool ends, and you find yourself together with Yamaguchi and college too, in the walks back home, which are now more frequent, since volleyball practice is not there regularly. The spring wind blows, and you get to experience it carding through your hairs together.

He still asks that question, nonetheless. Am I worth all this?

At 2 in the morning, you tell him that he is. Why not let himself enjoy this thing at least?

By this you mean this, your romance. Going along the line, when friendship, camaraderie turned to holding hands, kisses, and sleepless nights you can’t tell. But whatever has come to be, you’re happy that it did because it feels good this way. You watch the stars, the glitter of milky way and wonder about what’s the colour of the night sky called while sitting on the roof of your house and sipping on soju.

And one night under the stars like that, Yamaguchi ends up crying again, but this time overcome by a different emotion than when they bullied him. It’s a happiness of sorts, but not yet so. It’s a realization that convolutes his self-deprecating sense of self. It takes just the tiniest interval in time, one consisted of just five or six seconds. And all adds up, the words you (and Tsukishima and his old team) have repeated since so long, clicks and fits into the puzzle. It is simple, and while his eyes grow glassier, the starlight blurs under the effect of incoming tears, he wonders why hasn’t thought of it before.

He is beautiful, but in his own way. For everyone, it’s in their own way. You cannot write in official-looking handwriting, that this is the way it’s supposed to be. The stories you see in constellations, whether tragic or happy, are stories that could have been some other way.

But it’s this way, and that way is what makes them pretty to listen to.

“You love me so much. It…I’m thankful,” you say, and he’s left baffled.

“What do you mean?”

“You put in a lot of effort, are sincere and dedicated.”

“I mean isn’t this how it’s supposed to happen?”

“It doesn’t happen that way always.”

In somebody else’s story, what makes it touch the heart will be completely a different set of clauses. Your eyes were the first to become glassy with emotion that night, and after that he was the one who burst out crying. You don’t need the aesthetic shots.

Under the light of stars, this is your story, and in your and his language, this shall be beautiful. Celebrated in quiet.


End file.
